Based
on text from the original book: Shades of Light:
Photography and Australia 1839-1988
Gael Newton, 1988 Australian National Gallery
Chapter 1 The Speed of Light
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News
of photography reaches the Antipodes, 1839-1842
On
Saturday evening 19 October 1839, readers of the Cornwall Chronicle
in Launceston, Tasmania, were provided with a detailed
description of Dr Fyfe's experiments with photogenic drawing
as compared to W.H. Fox Talbot's process(1).
Dr Andrew Fyfe (1792-1861)
was a Fellow, later President, of the College of Surgeons at
Edinburgh University in Scotland(2). The
report (listed under ‘miscellaneous'
on the back page) in this small local paper, is the earliest
known Australian reference to the birth of photography in Europe.
The
Chronicle's report was unlikely to have been the first news
of photography to reach Australia. As voyages from England
to
Australia in l839 took an average of 134 days(3). English
newspapers and journals with articles on daguerreotypes and
photogenic
drawing could also have reached the Antipodes by the middle
of the year.
Curiously
the next known Australian reference comes from a smaller and
even more isolated colony, Western
Australia.
On
4 April
1840, the Perth Gazette ran an article extracted from the
English paper the Spectator called 'Self Operating Processes
of Fine
Art — The Daguerreotype', which, in contrast to the
dry technical account in the Launceston paper, was full
of wonder:
An
invention has recently been made public in Paris that
seems more like some marvel of a fairy tale or delusion
of necromancy
than a practical reality: It amounts to nothing less
than making light produce permanent pictures and engrave them
at the same
time in the course of a few minutes. The thing seems
incredible(4).
The
Chronicle of 19 October merely reprinted without comment, an
article from an as yet unidentified British
publication;
a number of which had reported Dr Fyfe's various demonstrations(5). The
relative speed with which the report reached Launceston
indicates
that what was once the Terra Incognita of the Antipodes
was, by 1839, part of a global network of Western culture.
It
is a mystery as to just how many of the 6,000 or
so people in Launceston would have understood the report,
let alone
have attempted similar experiments(6). Nevertheless,
in
the 1830s
despite its small size and isolation, Tasmania was
the most advanced
Australian colony, intellectually and scientifically.
A number of fledgling learned societies of a scientific
bent
existed,
including the most significant, the Philosophical
Society of Tasmania, formed in Hobart in 1838 by the Lieutenant-Governor,
the famed Arctic explorer and naturalist Sir John
Franklin
(1786-1847)
and his wife Lady Jane (1791-1875)(7).
One
of the earliest and best known direct experiences
of photography by emigrants to Australia was that
of English
artist and writer
Louisa Anne Meredith (1812-1895). In England
in April of 1839, Louisa married her cousin Charles
from Tasmania, and returned
with him to settle first in New South Wales and
later in Tasmania. Prior to their departure on 6 June 1839,
the Merediths attended
a soirée in Oxford given by Professor Charles
Daubeny (1795-1867) that included a display
of photographs. Meredith gave a description of
this soirée much later in 1886.
In her old age Meredith confused Talbot's photogenic
drawings with daguerreotypes since her description
of the exhibits does
not evoke the detail of the latter:
The
most memorable incident on that pleasant evening was the
exhibition of Daguerre's first essay on
sun printing — the
very dawn of photography. These were shadowy
impressions of leaves, more or less distinct
and were examined
by the throngs of guests
with wondering admiration(8).
Charles
and Louisa Meredith arrived in Sydney on 27 September 1839.
Whether the Merediths contributed
to
the spread
of the news about photography in New South
Wales
is not known(9). At
least two important scientific gentlemen from
England
also arrived
in 1839, the Reverend W. B. Clarke (1798-1878),
an Anglican clergyman and the country's first
geologist, and William S. Macleay
(1792-1865), a zoologist trained in Paris,
who had emigrated to join his father, Alexander
(1767-1848), another distinguished
natural scientist. Any such educated free settlers
could be expected to have an awareness of new
developments in Europe and might,
like the Merediths, have seen original photographs
before their departure. However, Sydney's scientific
community was not as
well organised as the Tasmanian Society in
these years(10). One
Sydney artist who did show an interest
in photography was the
landscape painter Conrad Martens (1801-1878).
He had entered a recipe for photogenic drawing
in his Commonplace Book before
5 August 1840(11).
Charles
and Louisa Meredith moved to Tasmania in
October 1840. By that time photography was
possibly
already
known to Governor
Franklin, who would have just had time to
receive a letter dated 5 February 1840, from Dr John
Richardson (1786-1865) in
Glasgow containing details of daguerreotypes
and of engravings made from them. Richardson,
a naval surgeon, had served under
Franklin on two earlier Arctic voyages as
a naturalist. His letter to Franklin is known
only from an extract printed in the first
issue of the Tasmanian Journal of Natural
Science, published by the Philosophical Society from
1841-1848. It was the
first such scientific journal in Australia.
The full letter was read out at the Society's
meeting of 3 March 1841(12). However
by the time the first number of the Tasmanian
Journal appears to have been advertised for
sale on 24 August, 13 Captain Lucas
had already made the first daguerreotype
in Australia on 13 May.
The
expository tone of Dr Richardson's letter suggests it was intended
for communication
to the Society.
As a response
to
photography it also reveals what hopes
scientists had for the future of the
medium:
One
of the most remarkable discoveries of modern times is the art
of causing rays
of
light to
act on oxides
of silver,
so
as to give minute representations of
objects placed in the focus
of a camera obscura. The Daguerreotype,
as the instrument has been called from
its discoverer,
or at least
principal inventor,
is so far improved that the images it
produces are fixed; and a further step has been
made of
engraving
it, by
means of galvanism;
so that, at a very moderate expense,
the most minute representations of material
objects may be multiplied
and printed off.
Plates of fossils have already been published,
which bear inspection
by a microscope. A common line engraving
on
copper may also be reproduced, line for
line, by galvanism.
The
process is
rapid
and simple(14).
The
extract goes on to describe the galvanic method and provides
news of another invention,
the electric
telegraph.
The inclusion
of this news as well as reproduction
of daguerreotypes, merely reinforces
that
these two areas of
research and development
were related(15). They were vitally interesting
as a means of shrinking
the distances between the greatly enlarged
geographical, political, and cultural
arena of the British
Empire.
A
second extract from a letter dated 5 September 1840 was published
in that
same
number of
the Tasmanian Journal. This
was from another friend of Franklin,
Dr William
Buckland (1784-1856), a
fellow member and President of the
Royal Geographical Society, London,
and included
three examples of Captain L.L. Boscawen
Ibbetson's (w.1839-c.1841) method
of taking lithographic impressions
from daguerreotypes(16). In
a later letter of
5 March
1842(17), Buckland
further advised Franklin of the development
of Talbot's calotype
process and Charles Hullmandel's (1789-1830)
method of colourwash lithography of
1841.
No
references to photography have yet been found in the correspondence
between
the
Franklins and
Sir John
Herschel
(1792-1871).
Herschel was one of the most eminent
English scientists and an important
independent inventor of several photographic
techniques.
It is surprising if they did not
correspond in view of the fact that in August
1839, just before the departure of
the British
Antarctic Expedition (1840-1843),
Herschel wrote to Louis Daguerre
seeking a photographic apparatus to send to
the Antipodes(18). This
expedition, led by Sir James Ross
(1800—1862), was
based in Hobart from August to October
1840 and the expedition officers
attended meetings of the Philosophical
Society
of Tasmania
and contributed papers to the Society's
journal.
An
approach on behalf of the expedition was also made to Talbot
who agreed
to a proposal
to instruct
Robert
McCormick,
the
surgeon and naturalist, and Joseph
Hooker, (1817-1911) the assistant
surgeon, in his photogenic drawing
process. A letter from McCormick
to Talbot on this subject adds
another voice to the sentiments
in the Richardson and Buckland
letters. Photogenic drawing is described as
'an art which promises to be of
incalculable value
in delineating the various objects
of Natural History'(19). Despite
these efforts neither daguerreotypes nor
talbotypes were made
during the Antarctic Expedition,
although some cyanotypes were made
later after Herschel developed
this process in 1842(20). Nevertheless,
it is most likely that the officers
of the Ross Expedition at least
discussed photography with their Tasmanian
hosts.
The
opportunity to attempt the first photographs in Australia
and the
Antarctic had therefore
escaped the
Ross Expedition(21). Much
was said about the applications
of photography to natural history
studies and expeditions
but little was
achieved in
the earliest years, particularly
in Australia where both science
and the
arts had a
precarious
existence(22).
More
detailed news of photography
may have preceded the arrival
of both the
Ross Expedition
and Dr
Buckland's letter, through
the Polish explorer and geologist
Paul Strzelecki (1797-1873)
who arrived in Launceston from
Melbourne on 24 July 1840(23). It
seems he had already told Melbourne
artist and surveyor
Robert
Russell (1808-1900) of
the development of the daguerreotype(24). Strzelecki
became friendly with Sir John
Franklin and
communicated
his own enthusiastic response
to the developments described
in the Tasmanian Journal,
views which Sir John would
have shared:
The
Daguerrism [sic] is surprising;
and before long will become
a valuable instrument
in
Meteorology for ascertaining
the Diaphaneity
of the atmosphere and other
not less interesting problems
of
solar radiation.
I delight
at all these discoveries,
and the
cheering prospect of peace
and advancement of Science
which
the enquiring mind
of the age in
the diffusion
of knowledge
hold
out to the world(25).
The
confluence of all this news of photography from
such letters,
the
arrival of the
Ross Expedition, and contacts
with new arrivals
such as Louisa Meredith
and Strzelecki, confirms that
within a year or
so of the announcement
of photography
in Europe
even the most distant colonial
settlements were well informed
of
its progress. However,
it seems that all this enthusiasm
did
not result in any local
experimentation with photographic processes
by any
of the
parties who knew of
photography as early
as 1839-1840.
This was most likely due
to the lack both of any
real examples or any technical
manuals. None of Daguerre's
technical manuals
of 1839 are known to have
reached Australia.
George
Goodman, the first professional
photographer
to work in Australia,
had arrived in Hobart
in August 1843,
but Sir
John
and Lady Franklin, both
so interested in photography,
do not appear
to have had
their portraits taken
before their
departure
for England in November(26). There
is also no evidence that
members
of the
Tasmanian
Society
made any
attempt to pioneer
the systematic
application of photography
for natural history purposes
either
before or
after the commercial
introduction
of the daguerreotype(27).
The
great boost to the
development of photography
in Australia
would come not
from science,
but from commercial
portraiture.
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